The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
(In Memory of My friend, Chauncey Bailey)
By

Dr. M (aka Marvin X)

How does it feel to get caught between the devil and the deep blue sea? How does it feel when a friend is murdered and the suspected murderers are someone you know as well, ever since they were children. It is a feeling of immense sadness, grief and disappointment. It is a feeling of guilt even, for we wonder why we didn't mediate the situation, force the opposing parties to sit down to reason together before things got out of hand, before a brother had to join the ancestors, as in the case of our friend and colleague, fellow writer and journalist, Chauncey Bailey. Yes, Chauncey was seeking the truth to tell us all, but it is possible he was working on the wrong story, or maybe the wrong aspect of the story, if it is true he was working on a story about the financial situation of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a family business that appears to be in the process of having its doors closed, the result of criminal activity, tax liens and creditors, but more importantly, moral issues, beginning with its founder, the late Dr. Yusef Bey, who was a friend that worked with me on many community projects, someone I miss dearly, though I am thankful I never had to experience his dark side, and I am genuinely sorry for those who did, especially the children. He fathered 43 children and it appears the sins of the father have visited some of them. One son was killed trying to rob dope dealers, another killed when someone car jacked him, and the current CEO, Yusef Bey IV, faces multiple charges, although someone else at the bakery has confessed to killing Chauncey because of his past articles and planned story on the financial situation. The suspect was a handyman at the bakery, so we are supposed to believe handymen are capable of plotting assassinations afro solo.

But as per Chauncey, the financial situation should not have been a priority, rather the essential and critical story should have been about how this family, especially its children and mothers, could be healed from its shame and trauma, and the business saved as a community asset. Tell me where one can find a loaf of bread baked by black people in the Bay or across these United Snakes of America. Where can just released inmates from jails and prisons find immediate employment, housing and food? Where can broken down dope fiends get their lives together and never look back. Where can the community find the example of a successful black business? I know the media loves sensationalism, but the positives of YBMB outweigh the negatives, and this is where Chauncey went wrong and it cost him his life, and with the bakery closed, it will affect many other lives, including the community in general so desperate for natural food and examples of do for self enterprises, i.e., independently operated businesses, especially family run so that children can see a future beyond a wage slave job at a white supremacy corporation more interested in outsourcing for cheap labor rather than securing a future for American workers of any ethnicity.

So we have here a double tragedy that approaches the best Shakespearean drama: what happens when the king dies or struggle for succession rights (rites), and what happens when the court jester or truth seeker seeks too much truth, especially from those who are supposed to be champions of truth, but have corrupted truth due to flaws in their moral character, resulting in the virus infecting the king's children to the degree that they self destruct, demolishing the kingdom, destroying all the good.

But is this the end of the drama or merely a necessary phase, since there are 43 children and perhaps the good children are yet to be seen and heard, especially the women who may now be forced to the front of the line to take authority over certain posts of whatever remains.
We love you Chauncey, we love you Dr. Bey--maybe ya'll can work it out in heaven.

Now this drama has villains more sinister than even the murderers, for as James Baldwin said of those who killed Malcolm X, "The hand that pulled the trigger didn't buy the bullet." Isn't it strange that with a plethora of unsolved murders in Oakland, this murder was solved in less than 24 hours--Chauncey was killed around 7:30am, by 5am the next morning, the police had a confession and murder weapon, as though they knew exactly where to go to apprehend the killer. Is it likely they knew beforehand what was planned, especially since they had the suspects under surveillance for over a year. Couldn't they have prevented Chauncey's murder--perhaps they too wanted him dead since he was also investigating police corruption. There is no doubt they had undercover agents and/or snitches at the bakery who kept them abreast of planned activities. The killer himself could have been a police agent. These are possibilities any serious thinker should consider.

Again, I want to say that the community failed the Bey family for decades by not treating them with healing love, especially after they gave so much to the community. Their isolation only deepened their trauma and of course things go from bad to worse. The children were traumatized but left to drift into madness and psychosocial pathology. When I spoke at the bakery a few months ago, they were happy and elated that adults had come by to visit their meeting, for nearly all of those present were young people associated with the bakery. They were even happier to discover the other adults at the meeting were my longtime associates and friends of their father. They let us know how pleased they were that we took the time to visit with them. We must reach out to the Bey children because they are our own. Their negative actions have now impacted the community in a big way--for Chauncey was no ordinary Negro but a very special guy doing a very necessary work. And as the community mourns his passing and heals, let us not forget the children at the bakery who need much healing as well--and certainly they contributed much good to this community and therefore deserve our unconditional love.

--Dr. M (aka Marvin X)
8.4.07
Oaktown

Dr. M (aka Marvin X) is author of the just released HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY, A PAN AFRICAN 12 STEP MODEL FOR A MENTAL HEALTH PEER GROUP, BLACK BIRD PRESS, 2008, 111 PAGES. Foreword by Dr. Nathan Hare, afterword by Ptah Allah El (Tracey Mitchell), $19.95. Black Bird Press, POB 1317, Paradise CA 95967. Available at De Lauer's News, 14th and Broadway, Oaktown

AFTERWORD: How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy

On the eve of a ground breaking paradigm shift, it is a privilege to perform this analytical autopsy on the corpse of white supremacy. Acting as Dr. M's intern, I have been able to diagnose and treat several patients who suffer from the most deadly disease in world history. In the preliminary stages the illness manifests as a virus known as white consciousness. This psychological syndrome occurred when European colonizers began exploring the world and discovered that the majority of the earth's population possessed some degree of pigmentation. Realizing their peculiar physical differences, Europeans developed an inferiority complex, that evolved into self hate. Eventually, the sickness became so severe Europeans concocted their own special remedy, the myth of white supremacy. Stemming from the virus white consciousness, white supremacy is a disease that causes mental delusions. In a confused psychotic state, the European mind began to fantasize about other culture's significant contributions to civilization until they convinced themselves these great accomplishments were their own. This infectious disease transmitted through psychological projection and mental alchemy, has caused many non European nations to denounce their indigenous culture, for assumed superior western principles.

This phenomena has robbed many people of their historical legacy and inflicted self hate, as they struggle to conform to European standards. White supremacy has become an pandemic, contaminating the world with false facts, and now developed into white privilege and full blown racism. However, after 40 years of research and study Dr. M has led the way to a cure for this once uncontrollable disease. As Dr. M's understudy I have been working on a potential cure to this growing pandemic, using North American Africans as my primary research.

First, a clear understanding of Frantz Fanon's three stages of assimilation, disturbance, and revolution is critical when analyzing the Negro problem, or their addiction to white supremacy. Several attempts such as The Emancipation Proclamation, Amendments to the Constitution, Civil Rights, Affirmative Action, and other Federal based programs have all failed to help the Negro successfully assimilate into American society. Although there are successful Blacks, as a collective group, we still lack institutions and infrastructure other nationalities possess in the American melting pot. Protests and boycotts have brought about little advancement for the masses who are systematically kept out of the mainstream and isolated in their own communities. This inability to assimilate has placed our people in a perpetual state of disturbance. Trapped in poverty stricken ghettos with little or no resources, people rely on empty promise from Negro leadership, who have a false sense of political and economic power. From the crack house to the white house, at some point in their lives, the descendants of ex-slaves will be confronted by white supremacy. In fact, most of our cultural groups and movements have been reactionary in nature, created in response to some sort of disturbance caused by white supremacy racism. Even Black Studies scholars and educators, in their mentally disturbed state are guilty of perpetuating white supremacy. Unfortunately, some intellectuals are unaware of the dialectic that suggest every time the thesis white supremacy is used, the anti-thesis black inferiority is automatically insinuated. Throughout this document I must admit my own guilt for using generic terms such as white, black, and negro to articulate my thoughts. I apologize to all intellectuals of truth who maybe offended by these bad words, however like Dr. M always says, we have to meet the people where they are.
The most apparent example of the disturbance Fanon describes is expressed through violence. Often the rage the oppressed feel for the oppressor becomes internal and turns into self inflicted violence. This phenomenon can be seen from city to city throughout America and in many non-European countries, where the oppressed become their own oppressors. Presently we are combating this by organizing Community Ambassadors in neighborhoods across America, to become Violence Intervention Specialists, that mediate cease fires and peace treaties between rival territories. Clients are then referred to the Hug a Thug Book Club, a rites of passage mentor program that prepares individuals to overcome the obstacles they may face in society. In peer group and inter generational healing secessions, therapeutic techniques and methods have been established that deliver our people from the realm of disturbance to a state of revolution. Unlike the stage of disturbance, which is characterized by anger, rage, and violence, in this stage Fanon describes a cultural revolution that reunites the oppressed with their true self. Inspired by Fanon I propose a three stage method of Detox, Recovery, and Discovery to liberate the mind of the oppressed and the oppressor. First, white supremacy detox battles self hate and inferiority complexes from an indigenous philosophical and historical perspective, through vigorous research and study. Next, recovery takes place on a psychological level when philosophy and history are recreated through the cultural arts. Discovery is the ultimate goal of self realization and becoming one with God and nature. At this level people are in tune with their true purpose, destiny, and mission on earth.
Some skeptics may question Dr. M's credibility as a true medical doctor since all doctors must attend specialized schools and take an oath, swearing to the Greek god of medicine Aesculapius. History proves that Aesculapius is the Greek name for the African Imhotep, the true father of medicine. In the ancient Kemetic language Imhotep means, "come in peace". Dr. M proves to be a true healer, coming in the spirit of Imhotep to bring peace of mind to the world. Thanks to Dr. M we now have a universal approach with the Pan African 13 Steps, so we can begin to learn to love, encourage others to love, and finally end the vicious cycle of self hate. At this point we drop the casket and bury white supremacy forever.

Divinely yours,
Ptah Allah ElMinister of Education, University of Poetry


Ptah Allah El is the first student to graduate from Dr. M's University of Poetry. For his oral exam, he conducted a workshop on teaching teachers how to read, based on Egyptian hieroglyphs, presented at the San Francisco Black Radical Bookfair, 2004, produced at Dr. M's Recovery Theatre/University of Poetry in the Tenderloin district. His thesis was a collection of writings entitled Ghetto Folklore.

How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy by Dr. M (aka Marvin X) is now available from Black Bird Press, POB 1317, Paradise CA 95967, $19.95.

FOREWORD
Dr. Nathan Hare
HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY
BY
DR. MARVIN (X)

Call him Dr. M, as I do, though I’ve known him by other names in other places and, like Diogenes, who went around holding up a lantern to the faces of the people he would meet in the streets of ancient Athens looking for an honest man, I have come to the realization that we as a people have been waiting and looking for somebody like Dr. M to come along for more than half a century, ever since America was stunned by The Mark of Oppression (the Jim Crow era book by two white liberal psychiatrists whose findings had brought them to the heartfelt conclusion that the race of people called “Negroes” was “crushed.”
In only four years after their epitaph was written, Negroes (now called “blacks,” “Blacks,” “Afro-Americans,” “African-Americans,” or as Dr. M sometimes calls them “American Africans”) had exploded in Montgomery with passive resistance. In four more years the “sit-in movement” had broken out among the youth, followed like a one-two punch by the so-called “freedom riders” (roving bands of individuals who boarded and defied the segregation of interstate vehicles and included a future student of mine on spring break from Howard University by the name of Stokely Carmichael). Then came “Black Power,” in the context of which I first heard of a man who had metamorphosed from the slave-name Marvin Jackmon into a prominent “North American African poet” who went by the name of Marvin X (the X connoting “the unknown”).
While, despite the fact that I have known him through the intervening years, I cannot unravel every single quality of the brother, I can testify that Dr. M is a brand new Marvin, a Dr. Marvin if you will, with a gift and a mission for a new black movement. I know this to be true because, aside from my Ph.D. and years of experience in the practice of clinical psychology, I have specialized in the study of social movements for a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Chicago . But more than that, I have watched a dedicated Dr. M, up close and clinically, going about his fearless work in the mean streets of San Francisco . Over a period of many months, on many a dark and dreary sometimes rainy Wednesday night, I served as a consultant in clinical psychology to Dr. M’s “Black Reconstruction Group” (the pilot to his twelve-step model now unveiled in this important book on “How to Recover from Addiction to White Supremacy.” In the pilot groups I sat in diverse and ad hoc coteries of men and women gathered impromptu in the austere basement of a Catholic church, St. Boniface, located in the heart of The Tenderloin, the highest crime district in San Francisco , just down a few blocks from the famous Glide Memorial Methodist Church . Many a night I marveled at the ease with which Dr. M and his talented accomplice, psychiatric social worker, Suzette Celeste, skillfully brought out trickles of lost and unleashed hope and inspiration in destitute and degraded minds as well as in the confused and empty psyches of invited members of the black bourgeoisie who, still trying to be unbroken, had come to where few bourgies would dare to tread .
On many an appointed night I stood by quietly looking on while Dr. M and his collaborators sauntered out into the shadowy mysteries of dilapidated streets to solicit and harness hapless homeless men and a woman or two and bring them in to meet as equals with the anxious representatives of the black bourgeoisie who had dared to cross these territorial and social boundaries. This of course is not recommended for the feeble or the fainthearted; because, until the revolution comes, or the proletariat triumphs, there will be difficulties and perils in chance encounters of the social classes. So I must hasten to explain that a security conscious Dr. M was operating in a safety net of collaborators competent in the martial arts; like Geoffrey Grier, who has been an international martial arts competitor and is a son of black psychiatrist, Dr. William Grier, coauthor of the late 1960s blockbuster, Black Rage, with Dr. Price Cobb.
At the moment when the oppressed have had enough, their rage will explode -- Fanon had warned us in The Wretched of the Earth -- and it is at that moment, at the very point of mental and spiritual coagulation and defeat, when they will come together and rise. Frantz Fanon went on to tell of a category of reconstruction groups called “’djemaas’ (village assemblies) of northern Africa or in the meetings of western Africa , tradition demands that the quarrels which occur in a village should be settled in public. It is communal self-criticism, of course, and with a note of humor, because everybody is relaxed, and because in the last resort we all want the same things. But the more the intellectual imbibes the atmosphere of the people, the more completely he abandons the habits of calculation, of unwonted silence, of mental reservations, and shakes the spirit of concealment. And it is true that already at that level we can say that it spreads its own light and its own reason.”
However, psychiatric authority for a self-help peer group focus on individual feelings (or addiction) in relation to white supremacy was available as early as the late 1960s, when Geoffrey Grier’s father, Dr. William H. Grier, and his collaborator, Dr. Price M. Cobbs, published Black Rage. Dr. Grier has also consulted with Dr. M and his Recovery Theatre around the time of the pilot trial run of the “Black Reconstruction Groups.” According to Grier and Cobbs, in the “Introduction to the Paperback Edition” of Black Rage, “The most important aspect of therapy with blacks, we are convinced, is that racist mistreatment must be echoed and underlined as a fact, an unfortunate fact, but a most important fact – a part of reality. Dissatisfaction with such mistreatment is to be expected, and one’s resentment should be of appropriate dimensions” among black warriors who would exact retribution. “Psychiatry for such warriors,” Grier and Cobbs went on to explain, should aim to “keep them fit for the duty at hand and healthy enough to enjoy the victories” that are likely to emerge.
Fitness for duty is a pleasant but likely side effect of Dr. M’s “Black Reconstruction Groups” working to free the minds of persons addicted to white supremacy. This no doubt is no doubt why they do not limit themselves in group sessions to expressions of resentment of racist mistreatment and dissatisfaction but also calmly allow its hidden effects, which often remain unconscious in the way in which the relentless karate chops of white supremacy have killed our dreams on a daily basis and shattered our ability to love, to feel loved, to love ourselves and therefore one another. I listened with much satisfaction as Dr. M and his assemblies delved into the depths of fractured feelings and emotions of the brokenhearted in order to help them come to terms with betrayal, jealousy and rage, in their moving endeavors to learn to love again.
And so it is that you will find many reference to love in How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. This includes, for instance, “Women Who Love” and the motivations of the men who love them.
Dr. M’s own fitness for duty is complex, unique and variegated. According to James W. Sweeney, "Marvin walked through the muck and mire of hell and came out clean as white fish and black as coal." Marvin can boast of “a Ph.D. in Necrology,” as he puts it, the study of nigguhs, issued by the University of Hell , based on twelve years of research in San Francisco 's Tenderloin and other research areas throughout the US ”). There may still be hope for Dr. M to join the white man’s failing system of education and mental and social health, when we consider that psychologists, including one of my mentors, the late Dr. Carlton Goodlett, customarily were “grandfathered” in when the state started licensing psychologists in the state of California . Then came an oral exam, followed by an essay exam, then “standardized “ tests for which workshops are offered to prepare you for a fee, causing excellent practitioners, especially black ones, to be blocked from licensure until they found out and forked over whopping workshop fees .
There is also a burgeoning market opening up in “clinical sociology” and “sociological practice” still cutting out its slice of the marketplace and finding its way in matters of licensure and credentialing in the field of sociology. But here it may be important to say that the self-help peer group does not require a mental health professional, any more than the primordial AA groups from which the mental health profession has profited and learned. Dr. M is dealing with a social problem, white supremacy and its residue in the minds of oppressed black individuals and white oppressors who have chosen to reject and come to places where their fathers lied. Oppressors pure and simple, who accept white supremacy, must be dealt with in a later context, as you will not very well be able to keep them in a Black Reconstruction or White Supremacy Destruction Group (or White Supremacy Deconstruction, if you will).
Many Afrocentrics, who faithfully and unquestionably follow twelve-month years and struggle to blackenize the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ, will undoubtedly be heard now questioning Dr. M’s re-africanization of the “Twelve Steps” model for its measure of African content, forgetting that the very effort to be practical and collective is the African way. But on one thing we can all agree: in any serious attempt to solve the mental ravages of white supremacy we must face the unadulterated fact that we are limited when we look to the institutionalized “profession” and their professional “providers.”
This of course is not to say that the institutionalized professionals cannot be helpful. Dr. M is quick to point out that a self-help peer group cannot cure all the diverse neuroses and psychoses that afflict us. Indeed he goes so far as to suggest that some of us “may need to be committed.” The late Queen Mother Moore (who loved to boast that she had “gone as far as the fourth grade, and stayed in school too long to learn anything”) delighted in going around deconstructing our “slave mentalities” and saying somebody needs to “do some surgery on these Negro minds.”
Queen Mother Moore was merely joking, but it is no joke that mental health professionals, operating under the medical model, think nothing of seeing a person suffering from a psychosocial problem but not only treat the victim instead of the problem but – much in the manner of any addict – use chemicals and sometimes chemical abuse to help him deal with his inability to feel good and thrive, or to help him “have heart” in a heartless world. Many people are unaware to this day that the practice once was rampant for psychiatrists to treat a person with chronic mental maladies by subjecting them to lobotomies cutting off a portion of their brains. Shock treatments was another method – you’re shocked by life, let’s shock your brain, Senator Eagleton (who ran for the vice-presidency on the ticket with George McGovern in the 1970s).

It should never have been surprising that the mental health profession would only be of partial help in reconstructing the psychic consequences of the centuries of prolonged brainwashing and subjugation – not to mention “Sicko” and what we know of the crippling new effects of “managed care” on the medical profession. Many mental health experts, the overwhelming majority of them white, have long suggested that the “medical model” may be inappropriate in the treatment of the psychological, not to mention, sociological components of mental illness.
But you don’t have to be a mental health professional or a sociologist to know that we can no longer restrict our search for healing to professional shrinks, raring back in executive chairs and carpeted suites armed with “psychometric instruments” standardized on the white middle class, far removed from the realities of the concrete social milieu of afflicted and homeless black “subjects” living lives of hardship and subjugation, with no assurance of available treatment.
Even when they are “insured” they are limited to the care and treatment some insurance clerk is willing to “authorize.” In matters of mental health, this typically will include a few sessions of “fifty minute hours” of “talk therapy” before leaving with a prescription or chemical palliative to dull the pain but not the punishment of life on the skids in a sick society.
The hour is up and time is running out, black people, but white supremacy is not. We are living now in the final and highest stage of racism and white supremacy. We’ve let our struggle slip back while sitting in classrooms and conferences crooning about “afrocentricity” and ancient African glories that have gone forever.
We have come now to a crossroads. We have lost control of our children’s minds, our future. We have their respect, and appear to be on a collision course to a war of words between the generations, in which hip-hop youth disparage and mock our language, our music and our humanity with a creativity and a rhythm we cannot fathom, let alone equal in our fainthearted effort to eliminate such as the “n-word” and fight the black-on-black random violence of youth who have concluded that adults and their leaders cannot or will not fight the power. Who knows but it may be that Dr. M’s movement of recovery from addiction to and from white supremacy is offering us a final and effective chance to begin to get together and get our heads together.
--- Dr. Nathan Hare

from the forthcoming book HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY BY DR. MARVIN, BLACK BIRD PRESS, 2008. POB 1317 PARADISE CA. 95967.
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com, www.nathanielturner.com, www.youtube.com.

Dr. Marvin At the Healthy Babies, Project, Inc.



On July 2, Dr. Marvin began a monthly dialog at Oakland's Healthy Babies, Project, Inc., a drug recovery program for women with children, under the direction of Majeeda Rahman.
Marvin held a two hour session on issues relating to recovery from chemical dependency. Most of the women were not Crack heads but Speed freaks or addicted to Meth, and they were multicultural, including blacks, whites, a Vietnamese and an Afghan woman. Dr. Marvin let them know although he was a Crack addict for twelve years, he never used Meth but was in the house with them so he knows their ritual. Meth has reached the ghetto's of America because it is cheaper and lasts longer than Crack.

The poet told the women to give praise to Sister Majeeda for maintaining her facility and that it was sacred ground because many women were not able to make it to her sanctuary, but got lost in traffic, so the Healthy Baby Project is holy ground and they should take advantage of it and make it work for them. They should stop saying no and say yes to life, stay focused and disciplined, so they can recover from their addiction and discover their bliss or life mission.

Dr. Marvin read from his Land of My Daughters, poems, and gave each client an autographed copy. The women also read from the book.

The Healthy Babies Project is not new to Dr. Marvin. The first production of his play One Day in the Life, a drama of addiction and recovery, was performed with the Healthy Baby women at the Alice Arts Theatre in Oakland, 1997.
www.nathanielturner.com, www.youtube.com.

The Great Monster Fear
from Notes on How to Recover from
the Addiction to White Supremacy





A white man informed me he is not about to enter recovery from the addiction to white supremacy, nor are his friends. In short, they will bomb the hell out of the world to maintain white privilege, to keep the oil flowing and free trade exploitation and domination.

A woman read the 12 Steps to Recover from White Supremacy and said since you have God in it I can deal with it. Another woman said I see you have a lot of that God stuff in your steps, as if God should not be in the steps, that it is all up to man. Well, it is all up to man, divine man, the man of spiritual consciousness, certainly not the animal man. The animal man is going to continue in his inordinacy blindly wandering on, as the Qur'an says.
For me, God is everywhere and in all things, there is no escape from God, no hiding place.

A Haitian brother wanted to know why his African brother sold him and appears to want to sell him again. He wants to know why his North American African brothers think he is African and not one of them, since he is from the Americas. I told him we must all sit down and reason together, work out the defects in our character. That is the purpose of the Pan African Mental Health Peer Group to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy.

Form your own group in your community, five or ten people gather and work through the steps. It will be intense, painful and full of tears to consider what we have done to ourselves and what we have done to others due to our white supremacy education and socialization.

Fear is the great monster created by white supremacy and thus we must chop off the monster's head before we can proceed. Fear of death was real and still real. The police are the modern slave catcher's out to catch us riding dirty, and then we are enemies of each other--enemies to ourselves, the man in the mirror. We fear success since failure has been our habit, yet success is for the taking, it is the gift from the Creator who is in the blessing business, yet we must step to the front of the line, not linger in the back. Fear keeps us in the back, keeps our heads bowed even today. I told a student I needed to see the president of his college and wanted him to go with me but he was afraid, even though he was a student of African consciousness, had studied with the great Afro-centric scholars here on the west coast, yet he was afraid. We must crush fear from our psyche. I was in Pebble Beach with a lady and told her let's go inside the Pebble Beach country club for breakfest, but she was afraid, even with her master's degrees. I wondered to myself why did she have the master's degrees yet did not feel like the master? Fear has whipped us down from centuries ago, fear that flows in our DNA, but it must be crushed to earth once and for all times. I was so happy to hear my daughter Muhammida say at Medgar Evers college that she is a child of consciousness, that she came from conscious parents, yes, they were once so-called Negroes, but they evolved and thus she has no knowledge of negrocities (Baraka term), no knowledge of fear. But think of all the black girls full of fear because of their color, whose lives were destroyed because of their color. A beautiful black woman told me how her grandmother told her from childhood she was black and ugly, so the woman internalized this lie from granny and it crippled her self image and self esteem. So much fear is simply ignorance which can only be destroyed with knowlege, in this case, knowledge of self, especially the Great Self. We are the Greatest because Allah is the Greatest and we are part of that Creation, we flow in that flow of the universe that is constantly evolving and by degrees we are raised to perfection. No fear zone.
--Dr. Marvin
http://www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com

Dr. Marvin Returns to the Bay



After three months on the east coast, Dr. Marvin (X) returned to the Bay Area Sunday afternoon from Beaufort, South Carolina where he completed the first draft on his forthcoming book HOW TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY: A PAN AFRICAN 12 STEP MODEL. While in the library at the University of South Carolina, he learned his friend from UC Berkeley, Dr. J. Herman Blake, sociologist, was a visiting scholar working on establishing Gullah Studies. Marvin had not seen Dr. Blake since 1964 when Blake invited Malcolm X to speak at UCB. Malcolm spoke in front of Sproul Hall before seven thousand students, Marvin among them. But after inviting Malcolm, Dr. Blake suddenly disappeared ( as if sent into exile) but resurfaced at UC Santa Cruz as provost of Oaks College where he co-authored Huey Newton's autobiography Revolutionary Suicide.

Marvin contacted Dr. Blake's assistant but she informed him Blake was at a conference in New York. She arranged a phone conversation and the two gentlemen arranged a meeting for today, but Marvin was informed he had reservations to leave Sunday morning so he was not able to meet with the sociologist who is from Gullahland's Johns Island and has been doing work on the Gullah culture for many years (see the Black Scholar, circa 1973).

Dr. Marvin arrived in the Bay to meet his new grandson, born May 31st to his daughter, Amira, an attorney who graduated from Yale and Stanford. This is his fourth grandson and fifth grandchild.

On Monday Plato returned to teaching on the streets of Oakland at his outdoor classroom, 14th and Broadway, in front of DeLauer's news and book store. Two young Muslims asked him about Malcolm X. He replied that he was in Harlem on Malcolm's birthday this past May 19, at the Schomberg Library as part of a panel of writers who discussed Malcolm as an author.

One young brother at his open air classroom, asked who was greater, Malcolm or Elijah? Dr. Marvin said that is like asking which is greater, the lemon or the tree? Malcolm was a branch, Elijah was the tree that produced many branches, including Malcolm, Farakhan, Muhammad Ali, Warithdeen Muhammad and others. Yes, Malcolm was Elijah's greatest student and greatest spokesman and organizer who established many mosques and founded the most powerful newspaper in America, Muhammad Speaks.

Elijah told Malcolm and all his followers to trust no one and guard against jealousy and envy, but obviously Malcolm failed to get grasp the concept or the lesson from his teacher.
He obviously trusted Elijah too much and was thus disappointed when he saw contradictions, and certainly he did not guard against jealousy and envy on the part of NOI officials and perhaps Elijah himself. So how can you fault Elijah when he told Malcolm don't trust me and be aware of jealousy and envy. After all, jealousy and envy had forced Elijah to flee for his life for seven years in 1933 after Master Fard Muhammad disappeared, but not before appointing him successor, although members of the temple objected, including Elijah's brother, Kallot. One member said he would only eat a grain of rice until he killed Elijah.

On the question of women and Elijah, Dr. Marvin said women probably wanted Elijah more or at least just as badly as he wanted them. Women had to be rescued from scaling the walls of Elijah's house trying to get in bed with him. They had to be taken off the roof. Along with Elijah, sisters must be blamed for disrespecting his wife Clara Muhammad. They were guilty of sleeping with her husband while up in her face. We know Clara was very bitter about this. Her story is yet to be written.

For the Best of Dr. Marvin, go to: http://www.blogspot.com, www.nathanielturner.com,
www.aalbc.com, www.youtube.com. Marvin X is available for speaking and readings, email him at mrvnx@yahoo.com.

Renaissance of Imagination
by Dr. Marvin X
Most problems today originate in the mind or in the lack of using the imagination. There is a concerted effort to deny use of creative thinking in solving problems in the global village. Using imagination often requires transcending tradition or the status quo which puts us at variance with those in authority, whether in the political, economic, religious or social sphere of society, even the keepers of the culture tend to police rather than initiate new cultural experience, new artistic creations and social configurations.
It is perhaps in the field of education where the murder of imagination is most blatant and criminal, for the creative child is often the genius who is of a contrary spirit and mind, who desires to do things differently but is often opposed and may be relegated to special education and thus defined as incorrigible and out of control. Yet, this child is often the leader by the power of his imagination, thus able to usurp the authority of the teacher, therefore he must be banned from the classroom. As a result his creative energy is unused and the educational process suffers. If only he had been given the chance to exercise his creative authority, even allowing him to dialogue with his peers on the lesson at hand. He may have the answer to the conundrum that the majority of his peers find most difficult, yet he is the criminal, the mentally retarded who supposedly suffers from attention deficient disorder. But what is killing him is the suppression of his imagination. We dare say the 50% of students who drop out of schools in America share his problem, and often if they do not drop out they are pushed out because their attendance and test scores are an embarrassment to school ranking and thus funding.
So we end up blaming the creative child for using his imagination while it is the teachers, administrators and parents who are brain dead and stuck on failed educational policies and programs. As far as we are concerned, every child is a genius until made stupid and ignorant by a deranged educational system that primarily has the mission to prepare cogs for the wheel of capitalism, not to inspire children to use their imagination for the advancement of society.
The classics of literature are totally irrelevant to a child when they are not in his language, even those that may be on the eternal themes of humanity. And today far too many children come to school traumatized by life thus they are totally bored by the fictional world presented to them by school. More than likely, the teacher would do well to learn from them. Imagine, the Washington DC children said the only thing they could imagine for their future was what kind of funeral they wanted. How can one teach students in such a state of mind, and of what value is traditional curriculum until the students have processed such damaging mental health issues. And are teachers prepared to be grief counselors? But do they have a choice when students come to school from a war zone, when the school itself is a war zone?
We applaud the sincere suffering teachers who believe in the students but are often blocked by reactionary, conservative administrations and parents from instituting radical approaches that will unlock the imagination of students and ignite that innate passion to learn.
The result of killing the imagination is obvious in the 50% drop out/push out rate of public education. It is seen further in the high incarceration rate of youth for sometimes horrendous crimes often motivated by gang initiation or the desire to belong to a group that tolerates their creative imagination and leadership, while simultaneously offering them a sense of belonging, of brotherhood and sisterhood, for in this regard the family, schools, church and traditional social groups have failed.
One solution is peer education, yes, let the students teach themselves, even if and when it involves removing the teacher from the classroom when he is often of minor importance anyway. So let the teachers stand in the hallways outside the class, reversing the situation so common. Let the class clown (usually the bright, imaginative students) instruct the lesson once they have conferred with the teacher, let the student translate the message into the language of his peers. We have tried this method, so we know it works if you work it. But more than likely, this approach is too radical for the conservative public schools, thus they will likely continue to drift toward disintegration and the continued death of imagination.

The renaissance of imagination can only be achieved by brave and bold leadership that itself has undergone a revolution in consciousness and is duty bound to resurrect brain dead students who deserve a chance to make use of the minds God gave them.
There is such a dearth of sincere political leaders that there is no need to address them with respect to youth matters, for the primary goal of politicians is to get reelected by any means necessary, thus they are prepared to do little more than talk when it comes to the crisis in imagination. The political minds are prone to give only lip service to the people until after election when they suddenly develop an acute case of amnesia, unable to recall the people‘s agenda but only the names of lobbyists to whom they owe a higher degree of loyalty.
The talk of a new black church sounds inspiring but it is doubtful it will engender a renaissance in the imagination of youth or adults, for by its nature the church is conservative, it must remain true to tradition, to the myth and rituals it is duty bound to serve, no matter that these myths and rituals have morphed into something that would seem very foreign and strange to Mary’s baby. For sure, Mary’s baby embodied and exemplified the renaissance of imagination by transcending many of the ancient traditions, and the world is better for his spiritual imagination, yet like the Amon priests who reacted to the monotheism of Akhenaton in Egypt, the priests and preachers of today have revised the words of Jesus to fit their agenda of worshipping Pharaoh or being his magicians who do damage control for him rather than carry out the mission of Jesus to liberate the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, the sick and broken hearted.
The renaissance of imagination will thus necessitate transcending religiosity into the realm of radical spirituality that consists of inculcating a new consciousness that develops out of freeing the mind of reactionary mythology that inhibits free thinking; the new consciousness allows radical thinking similar to the prophetic tradition which found itself in confrontation with those in authority, sometimes even at war with them. But new ideas come with a price that involves moving beyond thought into action to realize the renaissance of imagination.
It is in the field of the arts that we expect to observe the imagination forever soaring and searching for new heights, new means of expression, for artists by nature give us visions and prophecy, since their work is to search the consciousness for new ways of representing what lies in the depth of the soul and give creative expression to their findings. They require freedom with discipline in order to do their work. Freedom by itself is chaos but with discipline the artist is able to give birth to a cosmological order which is the mythology of his work, for upon examination by the critic, it is clear the artist has a certain consistency, a repetition of form, shape, colors, style, space and place. There are themes that seem to hold his interest, a vocabulary that is unremarkably his and his alone that marks his style, his originality. We expect the artist to help us understand the chaos of life, its vicissitudes and to make plain the endgame; where are we headed and how shall we get there. We are in the dark, so give us a little light that we may find our way out of this morass, this ever encroaching darkness. Help us imagine life in the sun for that is our home and our pressing wish is to return, for it is there that we experienced love, joy, happiness and peace. There we found justice, righteousness and mercy.
The work of the artist is sacred for his tools are the signs, symbols, words, sounds of the universe, thus he cannot take these tools lightly, for they contain powers beyond himself, powers that include the ancestors, the living and the yet unborn, powers that can shatter lies and falsehoods to usher in a new day, a new birth of imagination for humanity.
The cultural revolution will take a great leap forward when the keepers can organize African centered experiences on a daily basis, including conferences, festivals, bazaars,
and other educational, economic and artistic events that keep the culture alive 24/7, thus not allowing the people time for relapse, but instead there is only time for cultural expression which promotes economic progress and political unity for a radical agenda.
Only in this manner can a renaissance come about that is lasting unto the next generation.
Be careful of contradictions for they are the stuff that breed counter-revolution, so resolve them immediately with unity, criticism, unity and keep on pushing. The tide is turning because you are turning the tide! The new birth will come about when the mind is pregnant with new ideas that must be delivered and cannot be restrained. As they say, there is nothing like an idea whose time has come. We had the renaissance of the 20s and 60s, now it is time for the permanent revolution that will not allow itself to be aborted, diverted or defeated. But it requires eternal vigilance, yes, we must all stay on our posts until properly relieved.
Listen to the women because they are natural bearers of good news, new ideas that may be concealed only because men don’t listen. Then the women will say, “I told you that but you didn’t hear me.” Solomon told us two are better than one because if we stumble by ourselves there is no one to pick us up. So listen to the women, they may be able to keep us from falling when we are on the precipice. They have ideas that are sound but never been used, they have creative minds that have been repressed because men think they know it all, when sometimes they know very little but presume. Let the men not be prone to those classic tragic flaws of pride, arrogance and self importance, flaws that will surely prevent any renaissance except a new birth of old ideas.
Critical thinking is the primary tool in this era. Reacting emotionally will avail us nothing but more reaction from the opposition. Critical thinking precedes detailed planning for the future, then we stay the course, and shall not be moved by the moment but we are steadfast on our agenda, no matter what the opposition does, we do not waver, for it does not matter what someone else thinks, says or does, but only what we think, plan and carry out. We are soldiers up in here, and shall not be moved. Yes, a change is gonna come because we have come to make a change. Develop a five year plan, fifty year plan and hundred year plan. You can do it, simply do as Mama said, “Use the mind God gave you.”
We discussed earlier the retarded thinking of politicians whose mantra is, “Vote
for me, I’ll set you free.” It is very rare when political leaders have freed a people, but more often it is when the people decide to free themselves that they achieve such freedom, and perhaps then the leaders can offer assistance. If it were up to the people, there would be no US troops in Iraq, but the leaders, even after hearing the voice of the people, persist in their own agenda which is the agenda not of the people but of the military-corporate complex. The leaders are thus sycophants of the most servile kind. But if the people use their imagination, they might consider the general strike to stop the war and bring their sons and daughters home and out of harm’s way.
We must engage our minds in the critical thinking that produces solutions instead of allowing the show to go on ad infinitum. There are so many social problems that persist because we refuse to subject them to critical analysis, searching out the connection between events. How can we stop the war in Iraq when we can’t stop the war in the hood? There are just as many if not more sons and daughters being slaughtered in the streets of America as are being killed in the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan. If we pondered for a moment on the devastation in our streets we could easily solve the conundrum in the streets of Baghdad.
Perhaps we should turn to that most astute genre of individuals who are trained to use their esteemed imaginations on the difficult questions of humankind, those who deem themselves philosophers, who have been blessed above all others to have the time to dwell on issues those less suited never bother to consider. In truth, we are not qualified to delineate the meanderings of this elite group, but we know that there is no consensus on a critical issue such as freedom, its meaning and parameters. We know there are those who have thought deeply on this matter ever since our unholy sojourn in the wilderness of North America. The thinking has been divided into camps, often spit between those who say we should pack up and depart and those who say we should plant our feet on solid ground. Usually the path that comes into prominence depends on the circumstances of the moment, for it is usually when times are most difficult that the idea to depart comes into play, and then when things get better, when we achieve a momentary reprieve, we are willing to give ole Massa another chance, to declare our belief in the American dream, or nightmare as the segment who see no hope will maintain.
And what might be possible in the space between the two extremes, between separation and integration, just to clarify terminology. Shall we not take a lesson from the Jews who are eternally pessimistic and always prepared to go. For sure, we know our historical record is one of migrations and immigrations, voluntary or forced, by nature or man as a result of war, struggles over succession, ethnic strife and other matters in the human drama.
Perhaps we need a philosophic position that will keep our feet on solid ground yet prepared for the worse (keep your passport renewed), or shall we take the position of Claude McKay’s poem If We Must Die, “…Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back.” Essentially liberty or death, at least in this position we can remain on solid ground and fight to the bitter end for that which is ours.
But if we say stay, don’t go, what is the nature of our staying and not going--is it to suffer all that might be coming to the oppressor or to declare a space independent of him that is due us for injuries suffered throughout the centuries down to the present moment. Yes, reparations are due from Massa, and reparations are due from Africa, and reparations are due from ourselves, most importantly, for we have the wherewithal to achieve even the most seemingly impossible political configuration that will make national independence a reality.
There is no way we should suffer what America has coming for its iniquities--there is no way the robbed shall suffer the penalty of the robbers, oh, no, the universe is not like this, no matter how much we want to love Massa and save Massa, we shall not go down with Massa, unless we are determined to worship the beast, then of course we shall go down with the beast. Otherwise, as they say in prison, “Ride yo own beef.” No matter what the philosophers and intellectuals conclude and pontificate before crowded audiences for mega honorariums, our destiny is not the destiny of Americans since we have never enjoyed the American dream to any meaningful degree. For sure, we now enjoy a few crumbs from Massa’s table, a few trinkets that pacify the bourgeoisie until they are reminded they too are Africans, especially when their so-called first class status is called into question when driving while black or eating out while black. Even Oprah found she could not shop where she wanted and Condi was told she could not enter Lebanon during the American supported war between Israel and Hezbollah.
But men and women have arisen to great power in America though they must often be seen as belonging to the class of oppressors as opposed to the oppressed class from which they came, thus they are part of a select group that have roots in the African ruling classes who conspired to put us aboard ships for that westward journey into oblivion, from which we are presently attempting to regain our mental equilibrium and spiritual sensibility, which is why we are calling for a renaissance of imagination. For sure, we have made great strides since the revolution of the 60s. Today our children have acquired the necessary qualifications to advance educationally and thus economically; our women have acquired all the trapping of this materialistic culture save a husband, especially from their ethnic group, yet there is a void, a chasm so deep that we must again quote Dr. Nathan Hare who tells us no amount of sex, drugs, money, power or position will satisfy our social angst and shattered cultural strivings. For we have yet to solve the conundrum of the box, how to escape or even find that middle ground wherein we can maintain a level of sanity that is functional.
Perhaps our philosophers can look upon the still waters or even consider the raging ocean tide and come to us with answers that will guide us through this millennium that began with such turbulence and portends to be a rocky road until we reach that final destination called freedom.
And finally, we must applaud the imagination of the hip hop generation that has created a world youth culture, that has made more millionaires than ever before in our history, and made billions for the record, film and fashion industry. Hip hop has its detractors but the glass is clearly half full rather than half empty. Hip hop need only let its voice of consciousness rise again to the top, and this generation will astound the world, for in consciousness it is in synch with the ancestors and the radical tradition of defiance and resistance until victory. When hip hop consciously reconnects with its elders, the circle will be complete, for the family shall be able to reason together again
with respect, no matter the contradictions of the elders or the youth. Issues can be resolved at the table while sharing a holistic version of soul food.

Dr. Marvin
5/29/07
Beaufort, South Carolina